Why is the Honduras like Afghanistan? They have ‘brown’ people? You really don’t have a clue about culture, do you?
Not about culture. It is about interfering in a government to make it safe for the international business thieves. We don’t fight for culture. We fight for resources . We stomp on culture. We overthrow governments for AT&T. We do it for the oil cartels. The government of Iran was elected by the people in the 1950s. The president talked about nationalization of the oil because the oil corps were looting them. We helped overthrow them and put in a repressive dictator and installed the Peacock Throne. They stomped the people into the ground, looted the treasury, and got tons of money and military help from us. That went on until the hostage crisis when the people revolted tossing our dictator out. It is not new. It is what we do and have done many times.
In other words, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
I’ll explain again (I don’t know why). No matter who runs Afghanistan there will be corruption. Whether that is as ‘benign’ as you should hire my nephew to taking bribes before the police will help you resolve a crime. It is the nature of the beast in that culture where tribalism is the norm.
Karzi isn’t corrupt because we put him in power, he is corrupt because that is the culture he lives in.
I worked in Yemen for 9 years for an oil company. We went into the country when few would and spent money there to produce the oil. We got a healthy cut for doing so. Were we thieves? Without us there would have been no development. It is certain that anything you would have done would not have resulted in any sort of development. The Yemenis didn’t have the banking to develop their resources on their own.
Who will invest in Afghanistan without a healthy return on that investment to counter the major risk of putting money there? Again, you? Grow up.
Nice job, Uzi. You made good money tho, didn’t you?
Certainly, would you go there for less than you’d make wherever you are from? If you say yes, then you have every opportunity to get on a plane and go there now to help.
I at least made sure the people who worked for me were trained and mentored well. They also made about 40 times the national average in wages. What would that be in the country you work in?
And it also proves my point. The oil companies aren’t the ones making the country corrupt and poor. They’d be even more so without the investment. Because for every penny the oil companies make, the government makes 2. What they spend it on isn’t something we have control of.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1433139/oil_company_profits.html Yep. Oil companies are making at least 45 billion a year. The governments get two for every one the poor oil companies get? What a dreamland.
But it is not just oil comapnies. The contractors of all kinds are feasting on American tax money. Halibrton, Bechtel, Blackwater,and hundreds of others get multiple million dollar contracts over and over. Their life blood is our tax money and they know how to access it.
And how much would the governments of these countries get without the oil companies being there to invest? Are you going to lend them the money, and the expertise, and the organization to help them access their resources? You going to take the risk of investing there? Pony up, or shut up.
Yep, the evil oil companies paying taxes and royalties in third, second, and first world countries. Bastards.
And polluting them to death. They of course exploit the native workers and run the local governments so they can operate without rules. The oil belongs to the country where it is. Oil companies are not doing the country a favor. They actually prop up governments that will allow them to exploit the land while the leaders take enormous bribes. The politicians work for the oil companies. The people get suppression. They must deserve it.
Who is the consumer of all this evil oil? Oh yeah, we are. Damned capitalism!
Where’d I put my car keys?
I can’t believe someone is this naive. Where do you think the local government is going to get the money to do its own drilling? The expertise?
Fuck you are stupid. Oil company = manufacturing company = service company. So, no one should invest in another country?
And the oil companies prop up the government like any other company does. They pay taxes and royalties. What the government does with that money is their business. Kind of like what your government does with its money gathered from taxes.
And if you think that it is the oil companies who control the government, you are about 180 degrees from the truth. Every time you want to hire someone, you have a list of candidates that the government gives you that must be considered. We spent much time and effort trying to ensure we got the best candidates in the country and not just the ones the government wanted us to hire.
We deliberately don’t give bribes. It has cost us much money, time and production to ensure that bribes are not given. You do it for one person and soon everyone has a hand open. Our culture is not to give bribes. In theirs it is the norm. We aren’t the ones who are corrupting them. We are the ones trying to stop the corruption!
Notes to yourself? Ignorance is the first refuge of the blind. We’ve always supported corruption to make the world safe for the Corporate Kleptocracy. Check our foreign policy record from Hawaii to Afghanistan to Iraq, back to Afghanistan. Look out, Iran.
I don’t think you even know what corruption is.
I remember a story from one of my Yemeni staff. He had his computer stolen from his home and went to the police to report it. The police told him if he would pay them a sum of money (about 1/3 the cost of the computer), they would find his computer for him.
Or, another employee wanting to open a small beach hotel for local families and the government employee saying that they before they granted him a license he had to agree that they would be an equal partner in the enterprise.
Oddly enough, not a western person, or company in sight.
Try this. Corruption is thinking you have a right to an SUV and $3 gas while half the world starves. IMHO.
That response was not just stupid but gloriously naive.
We don’t deliberately give bribes? Are you joking?
He is incapable of getting the joke or he is part of it, basically, an obfuscating asshole. You might as well try to teach a pig to dance.
I do not recommend it.
Companies are run by people and people are good and bad. Kind of like countries. There are some people in any company who shouldn’t be in that company and will do things they shouldn’t do. I have seen people fired for not following company guidelines on taking gifts when they shouldn’t be doing so. So, I am sure that in some companies there are people who are violating some law or policy. Kind of like everywhere else in the world. Some of these people could actually be running those companies. Kind of like the people who run countries. Get both types together and you’ll end up with the sort of issues you’re intimating.
I also know that in the company I was a part of it was a strict policy to not give bribes. In the history of the company was there ever a person who gave a bribe? Who the hell knows. I know we lost a lot of time and money by not giving bribes when they would have sorted out problems if we had.
Unbelievable. I still haven’t heard how you intend to finance third world countries so they can develop their resources without using outside expertise and capabilities. Either of you idiots know how to accomplish this? Thought not. Either of you ever gotten on the plane to do a job for less than what you’d get at home? Yeah, thought not.
Like the perfect master says, that doesn’t even make stupid sense.
You represent our present solution. Hire a bunch of local gangsters, arm them and declare them a democracy.
Makes jobs like yours respectable.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0515-02.htm Bribery and supporting corruption is how international business is done. We do not do it for the citizens of the land. We don’t care about them.We want their oil, tin and drugs. We have supported dictators for generations. That is who we are.
Have you ever heard of education? You may not believe it, but people from these countries can actually do the jobs. They are not lesser people ,children who need us to run their industries for them. That is insulting to them.